Matrimony Says Farewell To Past On ‘See The Light’ (Song Premiere)

By

Eric R. Danton

Apr 14, 2014 2:00 pm ET

North Carolina band Matrimony essentially came together in a house on Montibello Drive in Charlotte, and the quartet pays tribute to its origins on “See the Light,” from the group’s upcoming major-label debut. The song premieres today on Speakeasy.

Singer Ashlee Hardee Brown and her brothers and bandmates CJ and Jordan Hardee grew up in the Montibello house, and Brown’s husband, singer and guitarist Jimmy Brown, lived there for a time, too, the Browns tell Speakeasy.

“It was a little bit of a crazy environment to live in, people over all the time, and it was kind of all the emotions I went through while living at that house,” Hardee Brown says. She sings lead on “See the Light,” a stirring, soulful number built around banjo, piano and percussion, with rapturous harmony vocals on the chorus.

The house they’re singing about is on the market now, and “See the Light” is part of an album-length process of celebrating—and reconciling—the past while also letting it go. “There’s an underlying theme of nostalgia and a search for truth, even if the truth is hard,” Brown says.

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